In the spring of 2015, we ran a Working Out of the Box feature with Abraham Burickson, the practicing architect who founded Odyssey Works—a theater company that produces performances for an audience of one, often lasting days. Participants are extensively researched and the performances are rigorously planned, so that the whole thing unfolds before them spontaneously, as they move about the world.
To Burickson, theater and architecture are one and the same—their objective is to immerse the audience, and make them feel something. And in preparation for this month’s theme of Games, it's impossible not to see Odyssey Works' performances in the same genre of experience: game-like interventions that change the way we experience the built environment.
The following interview is our conversation from February of 2015, edited for time and clarity.